Comments on: 10 Practical Rules for Dealing with the Borderline Personality http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:39:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: The Tao of Dealing With Crazy, From Mark Bennett, People Defender « Texpatriate http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-16169 The Tao of Dealing With Crazy, From Mark Bennett, People Defender « Texpatriate Sat, 07 Aug 2010 16:46:52 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-16169 [...] a family, travel the world, AND write an amazing blog. The following is cribbed directly from his recent post. If you find it as useful as I do, it’ll save your sanity on a monthly [...] [...] a family, travel the world, AND write an amazing blog. The following is cribbed directly from his recent post. If you find it as useful as I do, it’ll save your sanity on a monthly [...]

]]> By: Jordan W. http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-16023 Jordan W. Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:28:35 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-16023 This post has saved by sanity more than once these last couple months, including yesterday. Got a crazy text from the Crazy, and was about to respond, but remembered Rules 1, 5 and 6, and just put the phone down. Your list is now hanging on my wall. Thanks again. J This post has saved by sanity more than once these last couple months, including yesterday. Got a crazy text from the Crazy, and was about to respond, but remembered Rules 1, 5 and 6, and just put the phone down. Your list is now hanging on my wall.
Thanks again.
J

]]> By: Temple Ramming http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15974 Temple Ramming Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:19:50 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15974 For someone who has been dealing with the "drama cycle" of a BPD in my life this week, this post gave me a mantra of sorts (#1 in particular.) I just wanted to let you know that you helped me escape the cycle merely by showing me how to give myself permission to step out of it. This can be exceedingly difficult for a "rescuer" like me, who feverently believes that no one is beyond redemption. The problem is that I have been cursed by being confined within the mental prison of reason and can't escape long enough to help those on the outside. Woe is me! Woe is we! For our only real option is to choose to share our lives with those who share our captivity. I am reminded of Plato's Cave and it strikes me that the mission of the defender is to show the sunlight to those who can only see the world lit by fire. In either example, we should be careful who our friends are. To ramble further, the comment regarding the Borderline Victimocracy is spot on. One of the great characteristics of BPD is its convincing mask of sanity and incomparable capacity for manipulation. When combined with a perpetual victim mentality and an out of control system that turns "victims" into martyrs, this is becoming a perfect storm. It strikes me that a lying BPD should be exposed at the Intake or Grand Jury level, but that would be like saying that the Astros deserve to win the World Series this year just because they play baseball. However, I wouldn't think that a BPD would hold up well under competent and aggressive cross examination. While a jury is prone to respond to emotion, an inappropriate display of intense emotion should set off the "bullshit alarm." BPDs are reptiles that can easily explode if their lies are called into question or exposed. Just the two cents of a first year lawyer. For someone who has been dealing with the “drama cycle” of a BPD in my life this week, this post gave me a mantra of sorts (#1 in particular.) I just wanted to let you know that you helped me escape the cycle merely by showing me how to give myself permission to step out of it. This can be exceedingly difficult for a “rescuer” like me, who feverently believes that no one is beyond redemption. The problem is that I have been cursed by being confined within the mental prison of reason and can’t escape long enough to help those on the outside. Woe is me! Woe is we! For our only real option is to choose to share our lives with those who share our captivity.

I am reminded of Plato’s Cave and it strikes me that the mission of the defender is to show the
sunlight to those who can only see the world lit by fire. In either example, we should be careful who our friends are.

To ramble further, the comment regarding the Borderline Victimocracy is spot on. One of the great characteristics of BPD is its convincing mask of sanity and incomparable capacity for manipulation. When combined with a perpetual victim mentality and an out of control system that turns “victims” into martyrs, this is becoming a perfect storm.

It strikes me that a lying BPD should be exposed at the Intake or Grand Jury level, but that would be like saying that the Astros deserve to win the World Series this year just because they play baseball. However, I wouldn’t think that a BPD would hold up well under competent and aggressive cross examination. While a jury is prone to respond to emotion, an inappropriate display of intense emotion should set off the “bullshit alarm.” BPDs are reptiles that can easily explode if their lies are called into question or exposed.

Just the two cents of a first year lawyer.

]]> By: Thursday Thirteen: Random Thoughts « Cute~Ella is Bold. http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15736 Thursday Thirteen: Random Thoughts « Cute~Ella is Bold. Thu, 22 Jul 2010 17:36:07 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15736 [...] like that  list sums it up nicely.  Can’t click over? Here is the list: (originally from here.) 10 Practical Rules for Dealing with the Borderline Personality (a.k.a [...] [...] like that  list sums it up nicely.  Can’t click over? Here is the list: (originally from here.) 10 Practical Rules for Dealing with the Borderline Personality (a.k.a [...]

]]> By: Gritsforbreakfast http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15709 Gritsforbreakfast Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:40:42 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15709 I've got a heavy onyx chess set that would be excellent in a knife fight! I’ve got a heavy onyx chess set that would be excellent in a knife fight!

]]> By: Mark Bennett http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15699 Mark Bennett Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:53:58 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15699 Hmm. <a href="http://internetgurugirl.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/the-truth-about-sparta-townson-igg-internet-guru-girl-or-www-internetgurugirl-com/" rel="nofollow">Incapable of honest reflection</a>? I hadn't thought about it, but <a href="http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/03/go-go-godzilla.html">The Victimocracy</a> is a boon to the borderline. Hmm. Incapable of honest reflection?

I hadn’t thought about it, but The Victimocracy is a boon to the borderline.

]]> By: Mark Bennett http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15698 Mark Bennett Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:54:06 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15698 That's Rule 1a: Sometimes you have to. That’s Rule 1a: Sometimes you have to.

]]> By: Lisa J http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15697 Lisa J Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:26:13 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15697 And I promise I'm not going to start leaving 54 comments an hour on your blog, but I am seriously going to print this list out and look at it in spare moments and memorize it. Because family? There's no running. I conveniently forgot that part. And I promise I’m not going to start leaving 54 comments an hour on your blog, but I am seriously going to print this list out and look at it in spare moments and memorize it. Because family? There’s no running. I conveniently forgot that part.

]]> By: Lisa J http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15696 Lisa J Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:02:40 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15696 Wow, Mark. This is excellent. It's so simply laid out, so clear, and so right. The more aware I am of the crazy in the world, the more I find in the (my) workplace. Some of it's subtle, but much of it is not, and you see people perform these bizarre work-around dances to get through the work day. Me, I wish I'd had this list about five years ago, when I entered the Internet dating circus, although truthfully, back then, I couldn't recognize the crazy until it was extreme. In personal circumstances, I'd add you can't fix the crazy - but really, if you're starting at the top of this list, and it's a personal situation, following rule #1 gets you where you need to be. From my current vantage point, what I'd tell my five-years-ago self over and over would be: RUN. Wow, Mark. This is excellent. It’s so simply laid out, so clear, and so right. The more aware I am of the crazy in the world, the more I find in the (my) workplace. Some of it’s subtle, but much of it is not, and you see people perform these bizarre work-around dances to get through the work day.

Me, I wish I’d had this list about five years ago, when I entered the Internet dating circus, although truthfully, back then, I couldn’t recognize the crazy until it was extreme. In personal circumstances, I’d add you can’t fix the crazy – but really, if you’re starting at the top of this list, and it’s a personal situation, following rule #1 gets you where you need to be. From my current vantage point, what I’d tell my five-years-ago self over and over would be: RUN.

]]> By: Karyl Krug http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html/comment-page-1#comment-15691 Karyl Krug Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:59:40 +0000 http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2010/07/10-practical-rules-for-dealing-with-the-borderline-personality.html#comment-15691 I don't know about paranoid-schizophrenia in particular -- they may just be easier to spot -- but I agree that a higher-than-one-might-suspect percentage of the population is clinically insane, or has some sort of personality disorder that is so out-of-control as to be dangerously toxic to the spirits if not the lives of others. That is why there are books out there like, "The Sociopath Next Door" and "The Borderline Mother." Borderlines come in a lot of flavors, with narcissistic, histrionic, or infantile features, just to name a few. A borderline with narcissistic features is almost indistinguishable at times from a sociopath. Borderlines have an inner emptiness or fear of abandonment that has to be externalized to others, because looking inward is impossibly threatening to the average borderline -- the terror of facing what is not there in a weak personality really could result in the collapse of an already fragile ego structure, so unfortunately they avoid therapy like the plague. They imagine they are being abandoned in any number of ways, and always pin the blame on someone else, with an endless capacity to carry grudges forever, causing the very abandonment they fear the most. Shrinks refer to them as "the forever patients." They are simply incapable of honest reflection. The term "borderline" itself it very interesting, as it was originally thought that these people were psychotic, but they have enough of a grasp of reality that they have one foot in both worlds -- thus they were originally described as borderline psychotic. But they are less psychotic than they are in a constant state of denial about their own inner emptiness and its origins/causes. At least with schizophrenics they really believe that "they" (those unassigned pronouns are always a dead giveaway) are out to get them, and they seem to lack that element of active deception and manipulation that is typical of borderlines. I find schizophrenics somewhat charming by comparison because they lack the guile to put together a sustained narrative that some sane person might fall for for very long. Borderlines are clever enough to do things like lead groups and run for office, as they can be very charming until they turn on you. One of their favorite tricks, besides saying whatever they think they have to say to get their insatiable needs met, is to take their own worst traits/faults and project them onto a handy target, even if you think they have been your friend for years. I have been thinking for a while now that the next big societal problem we are going to have to address is the very high numbers of personality disordered individuals who are being encouraged by people in high places to let their imagined terrors, resentments, hurts, and fears be externalized and treated as though they are on an equal footing with what everybody else might recognize as reality. Who knew the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine would unleash mass psychosis? I don’t know about paranoid-schizophrenia in particular — they may just be easier to spot — but I agree that a higher-than-one-might-suspect percentage of the population is clinically insane, or has some sort of personality disorder that is so out-of-control as to be dangerously toxic to the spirits if not the lives of others. That is why there are books out there like, “The Sociopath Next Door” and “The Borderline Mother.” Borderlines come in a lot of flavors, with narcissistic, histrionic, or infantile features, just to name a few. A borderline with narcissistic features is almost indistinguishable at times from a sociopath. Borderlines have an inner emptiness or fear of abandonment that has to be externalized to others, because looking inward is impossibly threatening to the average borderline — the terror of facing what is not there in a weak personality really could result in the collapse of an already fragile ego structure, so unfortunately they avoid therapy like the plague. They imagine they are being abandoned in any number of ways, and always pin the blame on someone else, with an endless capacity to carry grudges forever, causing the very abandonment they fear the most. Shrinks refer to them as “the forever patients.” They are simply incapable of honest reflection. The term “borderline” itself it very interesting, as it was originally thought that these people were psychotic, but they have enough of a grasp of reality that they have one foot in both worlds — thus they were originally described as borderline psychotic. But they are less psychotic than they are in a constant state of denial about their own inner emptiness and its origins/causes. At least with schizophrenics they really believe that “they” (those unassigned pronouns are always a dead giveaway) are out to get them, and they seem to lack that element of active deception and manipulation that is typical of borderlines. I find schizophrenics somewhat charming by comparison because they lack the guile to put together a sustained narrative that some sane person might fall for for very long. Borderlines are clever enough to do things like lead groups and run for office, as they can be very charming until they turn on you. One of their favorite tricks, besides saying whatever they think they have to say to get their insatiable needs met, is to take their own worst traits/faults and project them onto a handy target, even if you think they have been your friend for years.

I have been thinking for a while now that the next big societal problem we are going to have to address is the very high numbers of personality disordered individuals who are being encouraged by people in high places to let their imagined terrors, resentments, hurts, and fears be externalized and treated as though they are on an equal footing with what everybody else might recognize as reality. Who knew the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine would unleash mass psychosis?

]]>